HorrorHound Weekend: Cincinnati 2017 Recap

Horrorhound Cincinnati 2017 marks over 10 years of road life for me. My first con was in 2006. I printed up 80 copies of my first feature film DREAM REAPER and took it to a small show in northern Ohio with an attendance of maybe 150 people over three days.

We sold 7 movies. Mostly to other vendors who felt sorry for me because I brought 10 actors with me to celebrate the release of my first film. We were all cramped around a single six foot table.

We had a magic show in the corner. We dressed a guy up like the Pumpkin Monster. We traveled in two trucks and rented two hotel rooms. I don’t think our sales even covered our gas money.

The upside was, the con was so slow, we were able to get Troma’s Lloyd Kaufman to do the video introduction to the movie. (Which meant that the 80 copies I’d already pressed up were useless because I needed to re-burn the DVD with the Troma intro.)

A lot has changed in these 11 years. Everything has changed.

But the one thing that remains constant is that horror fans still love horror conventions. And all these many years later, I’m still out here. Lloyd Kaufman is still out here. He’s still slanging Troma films.

I made the switch from feature films to fiction in 2012 and now, five years later, I can set up a small table, only bring one guy to help work the booth (big shout out to READING TO STRANGERS co-host Jeremy Daniels who sold more gay jesus chap books this weekend than ANYONE thought possible!), and sell as many copies of my novels as I BROUGHT of my first film to that first show.

That’s what’s supposed to happen, right? You do something long enough, you stay humble and you pay your dues and then you become successful at it.

When I think of all of the adventures my friends and I have had over the years, all the great people and crazy people we’ve met on the road over the years, I can’t help but smile. This is a crazy, stressful, maddening, but ultimately fulfilling life.

I really truly can’t think of another lifestyle I’d be more content living. I get to write anything my imagination can dream up and then I get go out on the road with my best friends and put those insane stories into the hands of my fans and give them a small portal into the mind of a mad man.

The last few months have been especially challenging. As I’ve broken away from the toxic writing community that seems totally happy playing gossip games on facebook rather than chasing success and adventure, I wondered how I would be received by the horror fans at large on the midwest con circuit.

Would they side with the full time drama queens on social media and ghost me like they never knew me? Would they start drama of their own over my non-PC social and political views?

Of course not. They treated me exactly the same way they always have. With smiles and open hearts. Like family. The Strangeheads don’t give a single fuck about online drama. In fact, NO ONE does outside of the tiny little circle of wannabe writers who start it.

Think about it, I signed almost the same amount of books in three days as the actual amount of people in the shitty little gossip communities who try to drag me down to their level.

When you’re at a con and you hear Iron Maiden playing in the distance, rest assured you’re about to stumble upon the green and purple world of Strangeville, full of drunk weirdos who all look vaguely like the ugly headed Kevin Strange leering down on you from the table banner behind us.

Come buy some books, gang. There’s a decade worth of stories in them. And don’t believe what you hear on the internet. They’re just jealous they don’t live here.

#MyToxicWasteParty Weekend Recap

img_20160918_111750I’m not exaggerating when I say that this past weekend was one of the top 5 craziest weekends of my life. I feel like I lived an entire month in the span of a few days.

This was, of course, exacerbated by the fact that I coordinated the release of my brand new book ALL THE TOXIC WASTE FROM MY HEART to drop the same weekend. So I spent the entire week leading up to the trip frantically formatting and designing the book.

Then I hopped on a train at 4:00AM Friday morning for Chicago Illinois where I met up with the real hero of this story, John Bruni of TALES OF QUESTIONABLE TASTE fame. This motherfucker had just gone through emergency dental surgery and still toughed it out and drove us the 11ish hours from downtown Chicago all the way to Lancaster Pennsylvania.

We rolled into town in the dark of night somewhere around 11pm Friday night, where we were greeted by one of my absolute favorite people on the planet, Mike Lombardo.

Mike played host to us and we stayed up way late into the night talking about all sorts of crazy shit, making Friday the second day in a row that I got zero sleep.

Saturday we got out of bed early and ran around Lombardo’s home town eating and perusing used book stores, just barely getting home in time to meet up with the one and only Brian Keene of THE RISING and EARTHWORM GODS fame.

img_20160918_113414

If ya don’t know, Brian hosts one of the most popular literary podcasts in the world called The Horror Show With Brian Keene. Now ya know.

Brian showed up with his co-host and producer Dave along with author Marry Sangiovanni (another great writer!) and Dave’s girlfriend Phoebe (one of the BEST horror show personalities.) For those of you who are avid listeners of the show, you’ll remember from a few weeks back the now classic Phoebe and Lombardo book club show.

So with this full house of great people we proceeded to have some of the most fun I’ve ever had recording. Mr. Bruni and I were honored with the privilege of being guests on the show for this upcoming week’s episode which airs Thursday, September 22nd 2016 from Project iRadio, iTunes and all other podcast programs on the net.

I’m not going to say anything else about the show because the energy and joy we had hanging out as a group absolutely comes across and if you’re friends and/or fans of any of the individuals involved, you owe it to yourself to give it a listen and laugh along with the rest of us!

But that wasn’t nearly the end of this adventure.

Saturday night, Lombardo took us on some more home-town adventures where we ended up at one point at a carnival complete with funnel cake and a professional fireworks display. Again we stayed up way late into the night talking crazy shit and once again got barely any sleep at all.

img_20160918_145624

Sunday we got up early and headed up to a local restaurant where Lombardo convinced the wait staff that it was Lex Quinn‘s birthday. For those who followed my trip on Instagram and Snapchat, you’ll know that we horrified Lex with a loud and obnoxious rendition of happy birthday while she wore her Jim Dandy birthday crown. Great, great fun.

From there, we proceeded to Philadelphia and the infamous Mutter Museum of medical oddities. You know, for being the author of such fucked up books, stories and movies, I sure have a weak stomach for this kind of thing. From the skeletons of midgets and giants, to Albert Einstein’s brain, to a giant preserved colon, I was able to hang pretty tough, that was until we got downstairs to the seemingly endless wall of pickled deformed babies….

After we finished getting our brains bleached by the insane specimens of The Mutter Museum, we hooked up with a local friend of Mike’s and then we proceeded to hit the Philly used book stores and actually came across a signed copy of my very first book as an author and publisher, the STRANGE SEX anthology! What are the odds of that? Awesome.

img_20160918_174744

We had some local Philly cuisine, then headed back to Lombardo’s house where Bruni and I were treated to a very special screening of Mike’s upcoming feature film, I’M DREAMING OF A WHITE DOOMSDAY.

Even though I was operating on almost zero sleep for an entire weekend now, I was still blown away at the quality of Mike’s movie. I’ve known him for a long, long time. Since both of us were making backyard splatter flicks on crappy cameras. I’m so proud of my dude for sticking to one of the hardest artistic jobs there is and getting better and better with every movie he makes. This is the one. You better not sleep on Mike Lombardo, he’s the guy to look out for.

After even less sleep than any of the previous nights, Bruni and I hit the road at 6am Monday morning and made the long, LONG trek back to Chicago where thankfully Bruni got to end his journey and get some much needed rest for himself and his cadaver tooth. I then got on another train and, after 19 hours on the road, finally got home around 1am Tuesday morning.

img_20160918_145717

Holy SHIT what a trip!

I can’t thank John enough for taking on the huge responsibility of driving us across country. I couldn’t have had this crazy adventure without him! We’re now road brothers for life, my guy. Never forget that!

I’m forever in debt to Lombardo for championing me after I transitioned from film making to publishing, leading to this unique opportunity to be a part of The Horror Show, and for being such a gracious and cool host for the weekend. Expect me back sooner than later, sweetheart!

And I can’t forget a shout out to Lex for putting up with Lombardo’s and my antics all weekend. Just having one of us to deal with is a chore, let alone having BOTH of us in your ear endlessly fucking with you. You’re one of us now, kid! Happy Re-Birthday!

And lastly, I have to give a huge thanks to Brian and Dave (and Marry and Phoebe!) for having us on as guests and having the faith in us that we’d put on a quality show.

I really, really do hope you’ll give this week’s show a listen. It was SO SO much fun!